minor offenses

I decided today was the day for what I call my "backwards" route, for no other reason than I always used to ride it in the other direction when I did it alone. But when I did that, the stop in Hopewell came at mile twelve of what was then a 34-mile ride, and that just seemed wrong. By going the other way, the stop comes at about mile 24 of what is now a 38-mile ride, which makes more sense... but doing the ride in this direction still feels wrong to me.

So that's the first transgression. The second is for the careful eye to catch in the picture of the redcoats above: Dave H, Andrew A, Prem R (with his back to you; trust me; that's he), and Peter G hiding behind the folded umbrella. Do you see it?

Well, that titanium bike in the rack visible over Andrew's shoulder is non other than my Yellow Maserati (which is neither yellow, nor a Maserati, but I digress [imagine that!]).  You'll see there is no bottle in the cage, in direct transgression of the ride guidelines posted on the club website (go see number two at the link). I had inadvertently left it in the cupholder in the car. I almost never drink except on the hottest rides, so I didn't notice it until we were down to four riders on the final stretch (more on that later).

Seven came out to the ride start: Andrew A, Tom H, Dave H, Laura OLPH, Bob N, Prem R, and Anouk W, a club member, but new to me (and to most of us on this ride, I think). My pictures did not all come out:

Now, one of my Usual Suspects has suggested that Route 27 might be better than my usual circuitous route through Rocky Hill, then up Herronton for a bit, then the realtor's tour of North Princeton and the trip down Rollingmead/Hamilton/Wiggins, but I like the way I go, so there, and that's the way I led today. As we came down, there was a rider ahead in red (see all the red in those jerseys? It must be the happenin' color this season), and I didn't know if one of my number had gotten ahead.

It turned out none of the riders who'd stated had gotten ahead; it was Peter G come to join us. Now, as we pedaled down Rosedale (which gets traffic-y later), Peter suggested we could get off this busy road. I was up for an adventure, so I let him lead us onto Province Line Road a block before I planned to turn into ETS.

There were signs for a bridge out and local traffic only, which, of course, got Tom H interested, but we hadn't gone very far before we turned onto what I think was a new section of the Lawrence-Hopewell trail, that connected with ETS Drive (it's not even a path yet on the map on the ride page).

I'm 68% sure I'll never be able to find it again. It's my own Platform 9¾.

From there, up to Carter and Bayberry, where I couldn't get a decent picture of the goats today.

And then to the Boro Bean, which was busy. It took a while for a few of us to get seats; as you can see, the redcoats sat outside.

(I the pics above, you can see that Anouk, who was evidently feeling ostracized for not having red on her jacket, decided to  show off the red on her inner jersey. I hope nobody feels that they have to wear red to come on these rides! We're not the East Brunswick Cyclepaths, required by papal fiat to wear a uniform color!)

Laura showed off her new wheels:

Blue on the front (and an excellent blue it is!); green on the back. No, they don't match each other, but they pick up the multicolors on the frame. There is a higher art and symmetry.

Other bike pics:

On the way back, we had the usual attritions: Laura headed straight back from the Bean, Peter G and Bob N decided to do some exploring at Hollow Road, Anouk and Andrew turned off to head home at Griggstown Road. Prem, Dave, Tom, and I coasted back to the start.

It was enough. I hope to see 'em all again soon. I gotta plan a C+ ride to get some of the other folks out, too. We'll see what's up next weekend.